Once The Rezza Community Engagement Element Of The Commission Is Complete
Once the Rezza community engagement element of the commission is complete, it’s time to gather the many drawings, photographs, thoughts and opinions of the many club members and local residents together! I’ve taken many walks and even more photographs of the amazingly unique environment of Edgbaston Reservoir over the last few months – in fact longer, if you include the explorations I made when researching for the Roundhouse, Birmingham commission, ‘From Summerfield to Paradise’. The Rezza was the subject of one of the large-scale collages co-created with community members through the ‘Lockdown Collage Kit Project’, which enabled community participation in the project ‘Community Routes’, despite restrictions. In fact the rezza has become one of my personal places to escape to, when city life gets on top!
With the rapidly changing Birmingham cityscape on one side leading to the more natural environment and orchard on the other, flanked by residential housing all the way round, there’s a lot to encapsulate in an artwork that’s representative of the Midland Sailing Club, the Rowing Club and the Rezza itself. To explore how long the reservoir has been a much loved Birmingham destination, almost a seaside like environment in the city, I took a trip down to the archives in the Central Library of Birmingham to see what I could uncover! A trip down to the archives brings out a childlike excitement in me, when the fantastic staff set up a place for you and bring out those brown boxes and albums full of treasure to be discovered! I thought I’d share some of those images with you, to celebrate this unique heritage enjoyed for generations.
Not all of the imagery generated from creative community engagement and heritage research can be incorporated in to the artwork for obvious reasons. It struck me that it would be interesting to approach the design concept as a panorama, an image that could incorporate the many sides and views of this ever changing space. It’s home as a central hub for water sports, for runners and joggers, dog walkers and children and those that just want to take a peaceful meander, could be expressed well within a panoramic view. I was excited to find some heritage imagery that illustrated the changes within the environment over time, and others that show how little really has changed at all…..
Photographs are courtesy of the Wolfston Centre, Library of Central Birmingham, many thanks for their support. I hope you enjoy these glimpses into past incarnations of the Rezza as much as I have and look forward to sharing the next part of the process, where we move on to the production stage of the commission.
